Biography
Frank L. Palmer was a labor journalist and editor prominent in 1920s Colorado. He edited the Colorado Labor Advocate, a Denver labor weekly, and was a correspondent for the Federated Press, the left-wing labor news service. During the 1927–1928 Colorado coal strike — the great walkout that culminated in the Columbine Mine Massacre, the killing of striking miners at Serene, Colorado in November 1927 — Palmer was a leading voice of the strikers, urging them to keep striking peacefully. He exposed corporate anti-union espionage in his 1928 book "Spies in Steel: An Exposé of Industrial War." A "fiery labor editor," he was, by a 1967 account, jailed more than once for his strike and organizing activity; that account also placed him in semi-retirement in Holland, Michigan, late in life. The specific charges, dates and sentences of his jailings are not documented in the readily available sources.
